Poor Frank Capra: after Adam Sandler starred in the dreadful remake of Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington (the truncated Mr. Deeds), the erstwhile Saturday Night Live comic is back to headline Frank Coraci's Click, a film clearly inspired by the Capra classic It's a Wonderful Life. This gimmicky, one-joke, special-effects comedy (that also tries to be sweet and fuzzy and impart “life lessons”) finds a harried, overworked husband and father (Sandler) acquiring a magical remote with which he can slow down, speed up, or stop the real world around him. Early on, Click is content to milk the concept in the most obvious ways—slow-mo, fast forward, freeze-frame—but it's not long before the remote skips years ahead in order to teach Sandler's character that he should have hit pause to smell the roses along the way. It's a tough call as to which aspect of the film is worse—the coarse humor that demonstrates over and over again how low supposed “family entertainment” has sunk (most appalling is a running gag about a dog and a stuffed toy), or the extra-schmaltzy message delivered when the remote takes over and the narrative devolves into a series of self-pitying episodes dominated by mediocre aging makeup and loads of cheap sentimentality. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary (by star Adam Sandler, director Frank Coraci, and co-writer/producer Steve Koren), seven production featurettes, including “Make Me Old and Fat” on the fat suit (7 min.), “FX” (5 min.), “Design My Universe” (5 min.), “Director's Take” (5 min.), “Fine Cooking” with additional fat suit footage (3 min.), “Cars of the Future” (3 min.), and the brief “Humping Dogs,” as well as four deleted scenes (3 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a low-brow set of extras for a low-brow film.] (F. Swietek)
Click
Sony, 108 min., PG-13, DVD: $28.99, Oct. 10 Volume 21, Issue 6
Click
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As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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